Sustainability Award win at the Schüco Excellence Awards 2025

The Gradel Quadrangles at New College Oxford, a project we worked on, has won the Sustainability Award at the Schüco Excellence Awards 2025. The winners were announced at the ceremony on 26 June.

Designed by David Kohn Architects, the Gradel Quadrangles reimagines the traditional Oxford quadrangle. For us it was a genuinely difficult brief. The roof cladding follows a complex, multi-curved form with an irregular hexagonal tiled effect built up from expanding nodes, which meant almost every part was one of a kind.

Because no two components were the same, each one had to be handled carefully and anodised to a consistent finish. That consistency matters: a facade made up of hundreds of separate pieces needs to read as a single, even surface rather than a patchwork.

Work like this depends on getting close to the design team early. We spent time with the architects working through the detail so the finish matched what they had drawn. Helping architects turn an ambitious design into the real thing is the part of the job we enjoy most.

Congratulations to David Kohn Architects and everyone involved on a well-earned award. We were glad to play our part.